Quiver & Quill

In a few weeks I’ll be in a small village in Colombia trying to impress my girlfriend’s grandparents. And as impressive as Twitter, Facebook, social media and advertising might be, I think learning Spanish is a far more effective way to go here. So I’ve covered my apartment with Spanish phrases and words, and my friend Karlenis hand selected the phrases (i.e., appliance tagging). I’ve also downloaded a few Spanish books on audible. So as long as they ask me one of 50 or so phrases, I’ll be just fine. Hasta manana.

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The smell of brick, spring flowers and Fenway-

He sits peacefully in the sun, an old man selling plastic birds.
As a young man, did he sell papers on same corner?
I ask him if I could take a picture.
He nods yes.

I do not want a plastic bird.
I want a photo.

“I would like a green one,” I say.
He passes it to me as if bestowing a secret
“You have to fill it with water,” he says filling it with water.

I blow.
Nothing happens.

“You have to pucker your lips,” he says.
I pucker my lips and blow again.
From the plastic bird emerges a beautiful song that floats above the traffic

How many Bostonians own one of his birds?
And if they played at the same time what magic would fill the streets:
Cars would stop
Women would leave their salons, nails wet, to watch
Cats chasing after the sound of his plastic birds

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My friends started a website called Nkd Guru. They are finalist in a competition, and the winner receives a cool million dollars in venture funding. Check out their stuff, and if you like it, vote for them. Even if you don’t like it, their accent and the video is cool enough to earn the vote. And if you love the idea, as I do, help spread the word.

How to vote:
1. Click on this link - http://youbethevc.com/finalists
2. Click the “Join” tab
3. Fill out your info
4. Click the “Finalists” tab
5. And Click 5 GREEN STARS under the nkdguru logo

(NOTE: There is no confirmation per se, the indication is in the form of 5 stars changing color from “white” to “green”)

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More than thirty attended the third Rubber Chicken Social Club dinner at Chang Sho restaurant in Cambridge. We shared great food and conversation. In order to facilitate this, everyone at the dinner received a note card with an assignment. The names of three different people at the dinner and questions to ask them were written on each card. The questions were conversation starters based on people’s areas of expertise or interest.

For example, one question read: “Ask Bob how he uses Second Life in his business.” and another “Ask David what the difference is between filming for the web and filming for TV.”

After each course the ten people at each of the three tables switched places. From what I could tell everyone had the opportunity to get to know each other.

My favorite moment of the evening happened when I looked around the table to see everyone happily eating Chinese food and discussing social media, politics, PR, the Cambridge geek scene, investing and mobile user interface design. It felt like one of those movie moments when the soundtrack kicks in.

Thanks for making the Rubber Chicken Social Club a success. If you’d like at attend the next dinner, email me, or send me a tweet (quiverandquill). Bring a healthy appetite and your sense of humor.

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A creative ad caught my eye on Facebook today. A young man used a Facebook flyer to ask prospective employers to hire him. When you click on his ad, you arrive at his YouTube page with a short pitch (see it below). I love the concept of job seekers targeting prospective employers with creative techniques like these.

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I am speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters next week. The topic of my talk is “How to Activate Listeners Online.” My strategy is to share with the audience that online marketing isn’t just one set of strategies. In fact, there are hundreds of strategies and many critical outcomes which trigger which of those strategies are selected. For example, all of the outcomes below are important to interactive directors of media companies; however, the selection of strategies is contingent on the budget and order of importance of the outcomes. Key outcomes for radio websites:

• How to get more existing listeners to your website
• How to get your competitions listeners to your website
• How to get listeners to affiliate with your station on their point of presence online
• How to get more listeners to spend more time on your site
• How to get more listeners to invite their friends and family to the site
• How to get members of your community to blog about you
• How to win friends and influence listeners in social networks
• How to increase subscriptions and downloads
• How to grow the quality of your online community
• How to grow the size of your online community
• How to get recruit the best interactive talent
• How to get find the best ideas to activate your listener online

I’ll put my slides on slideshare.net after the presentation.

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I received an email from my old accountant. His daughter, and ten other local young ladies, were modeling prom dresses for a local clothing store’s website. The young lady who received the most votes won a prom prize package. This is a simple promotion, and I imagine highly effective. My accountant most have sent this email to a few hundred people, and each model I am sure did the same.  It’s a simple promotion and a good idea. 

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Bulk Bin of Mini Rubber Chickens

Originally uploaded by zoomar

I am starting a social club called “The Rubber Chicken Social Club.”
The name comes from these mini rubber chickens that my business partner gave me years ago.They were a reminder to smile during my presentation at the National Association of Broadcasters in 2006.
Ever since one mini rubber chicken has lived comfortably in my wallet, nestled right behind my license. It’s a daily reminder to bring humor and personality into my work and life.

Right now the Rubber Chicken Social Club throws monthly dinners.
New friends, sales people, tech geeks, bloggers, entrepreneurs, twitter addicts, scholars and old friends all come together to share a meal. About 25 people attend, and I either work with or collaborate with all of them. Everyone who attends has a genuine curiosity, a love of learning and meeting new people.

In the coming months I plan to turn the Rubber Chicken Social Club into an active, inclusive, high-energy group mini rubber chicken lovers. Some things I would like to do are: bowling; breakfasts; lectures; tweet ups; Twitter Olympics (yet to be defined); pecha-kucha’s; Random acts of organized kindness; Trivia night and giving away tons of mini rubber chickens. I am at the brainstorming stage right now. If you would like to be part of this, leave me a comment—or attend one of our events. I am very open to your suggestions. I will give a mini rubber chicken to the first 3 I receive—just tell me where to send them.

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Sandy, aka, @Skalik, is a social media maven. She hails from Oregon, works at Topaz Partners and blogs at Sandying and Tech PR Gems.

1. What’s the number 1 reason you’re on twitter?

Spontaneous, yet meaningful interaction. 

2. Where do you go to find inspiration?

Google, Wikipedia—research is where it all begins.

3. How do you use Facebook?

Mostly to keep in touch with my friends from college and high school that are now all over the country.  What keeps me coming back to Facebook? Scrabulous.

3. Tell me about your dream project:

My dream project would allow me to roll all of my interests into one—perhaps a social media optimized museum exhibit or research into online culture, searching for trends in human existence and understanding from ancient societies to now?

4. What phrase or expression are you tired of hearing?

“Do you have the bandwidth to do X, Y and Z?”

“We can Leverage T and K capabilities…”

Enterprise—this word does little for me but conjure up images of Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

5. Favorite people to follow on Twitter?

@dough –social media guru and colleague at Topaz

@scottpboston –makes me laugh

@jvettorino –proof that you can develop a friendship with someone you’ve never met in person

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I attended to the Social Media Breakfast today in Boston. My favorite part of the breakfast was tagging people who attended. Here’s how it worked: Everyone received little sticky pieces of paper when they signed in. On the sticky paper, you wrote a descriptive word or phrase, a tag, and you affix it to people you meet.
I was tagged with: “making connections”, “blog group”, and “pr guru”. And I tagged other people “firefly”, “chipper”, “video maven”, and “blog group”. Tagging is naming, and there is power in naming as there is power in language. I like what Franz Fanon says,”I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.”

The act of tagging at Social Media Breakfast both defined relationships and people. The power to name is the power to give meaning.

And that was better than the eggs and sausage..

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